Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
Search Presbyter Records
Search Evidence Records
Print:
ID
ER 2111
The Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius issue the law which forbids clerics to hide public debtors. The law issued on 18 October 392 in Constantinople, included in the Theodosian Code published in 438 and in the Breviary of Alaric published in 506 in Gaul, repeated in the Justinian Code promulgated in 529 and then again 534.
IX.45.1 = Breviarum Alarici IX.34 = cf. CJ 1.12
 
IMPPP. THEOD(OSIVS), ARCAD(IVS) ET HONOR(IVS) AAA. ROMVLO COM(ITI) S(ACRARVM) L(ARGITIONVM). Publicos debitores, si confugiendum ad ecclesias crediderint, aut ilico extrahi de latebris oportebit aut pro his ipsos, qui eos occultare probantur, episcopos exigi. Sciat igitur praecellens auctoritas tua neminem debitorum posthac a clericis defendendum aut per eos eius, quem defendendum esse crediderint, debitum esse solvendum. DAT. XV KAL. NOV. CONSTAN(TINO)P(OLI) ARCAD(IO) A. II ET RVFINO CONSS.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 519)
IX.45.1 = Breviarum Alarici IX.34 = cf. CJ 1.12
 
Emperors Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius Augustuses to Romulus, Count of the Sacred Imperial Largesses. If public debtors should suppose that they may take refuge in the churches, they shall either be dragged out of their hiding places at once, or payment of their debts shall be exacted of the bishops who are proved to have harbored them. Your Eminent Authority shall know, therefore, that no debtor hereafter shall be defènded by clerics, or else the debts shall be paid by the clerics for a debtor who they suppose ought to be defended. Given on the fifteenth day before the kalends of November at Constantinople in the year of the second consulship of Arcadius Augustus and the consulship of Rufinus. October 18, 392.
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 264-65)

Place of event:

Region
  • East
  • Gaul
City
  • Constantinople

About the source:

Title: Codex Theodosianus, Code of Theodosius, Theodosian Code, Breviary of Alaric, Lex Romana Visigothorum, Code of Justinian, Justinianic Code, Codex Iustianianus
Origin: Constantinople (East), Gaul
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The Theodosian Code is a compilation of the Roman legislation from the times of the Emperor Constantine to the times of Theodosius II. The work was begun in 427 and finished in autumn 437 when it was accepted for publication. It was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect from the beginning of the year 439.
 
The compilation consist of sixteen books in which all imperial constitutions are gathered beginning with the year 312. Books 1-5 did not survive and are reconstructed from the manuscripts of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, i.e. the Breviary of Alaric, the legal corpus published in 506 by the Visigothic king, Alaric, containing excerpts from the Theodosian Code equipped with explanatory notes (interpretationes), post-Theodosian novels and several other juristic texts.
 
A new compilation was undertaken during the reign of the emperor Justinian. A committee of ten persons prepared and promulgated the Codex in 529. It was quickly outdated because of the legislative activities of the emperor and therefore its revised version had to be published in 534. The Codex together with the novels, the Pandecta, a digest of juristic writings, and the Institutes, an introductory handbook are known under the medieval name "Corpus Iuris Civilis".
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Paul Krüger (ed.), Codex Iustinianus, Berlin 1877
Gustav Hänel (ed.), Lex Romana Visigothorum, Leipzig 1849
 
Translation:
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a translation with commentary, glossary, and bibliography by C. Pharr, Princeton 1952
Bibliography:
(all those entries with extenstive, recent bibliography)
 
 

Categories:

Described by a title - Clericus
    Public law - Secular
      Administration of justice - Financial punishment
        Pastoral activity - Ransoming and visiting prisoners and captives
          Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2111, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2111
          Record by: Marta Szada
          last edited: 2020-06-26 18:54:41
          Contact
          Privacy policy
          FAQ
          About the project
          Team